Forgotten Realms Nerds: How many mindflayers...?

[tacticslion]

... are in the world of Toril?

Like, yeah, of course, I'm not going to get an official exact count, but I'm asking about how many of the things I might possibly squeeze out of the whole planet.

Elder brains are definitely included, but undead (like illithiliches) are not.

I've got my own numbers, but I'm waiting until someone gives a solid guesstimate (and reasoning) before sharing my own - I don't want to put potentially wrong ideas out without getting other feedback first. My own are generally made up anyway (based on a combination of eyeballing, guesses, and a calculator), so... I'm curious if anyone has any solid ideas and arguments for why.

Thanks!

[Krylo]

I'd say there's probably something like 500,000,000 sapient creatures in the underdark, given a medieval standard of living + danger of underdark, and assuming a size roughly contingent with the over world with magic off setting the other two, working off of real world population levels in antiquity--with the Illithid being a relatively small percentage of that as that they can only feed on other sapients, have few, if any friends, etc.

So I'd say 5-10 million.

[tacticslion]

I'd say there's probably something like 500,000,000 sapient creatures in the underdark, given a medieval standard of living + danger of underdark, and assuming a size roughly contingent with the over world with magic off setting the other two, working off of real world population levels in antiquity--with the Illithid being a relatively small percentage of that as that they can only feed on other sapients, have few, if any friends, etc.

So I'd say 5-10 million.

Thank you! That... is actually really useful.

I'd be open to more guesstimates, but... that seems like a fairly solid number, at 1-2% of the population. That's... cool. Thanks!

[Krylo]

I mean, feel free to adjust over all population of the Underdark as you like. I used really simple methodology of 'I guess the life expectancy in fantasy worlds would be roughly equivalent to renaissance era our world, lets see what the population there was' and then 'the underdark probably has about the same number of people alive on it as the surface given the size'.

But, yeah, I feel 1-2% of whatever you or others (if they have better arguments) decide the Underdark's sapient population should be for a species like the Illithid seems about right to me given their predatory nature.